The Price of Surrender...
Vis-a-vis yesterday's rant about the "Surrender Now" crowd, I'd like to follow up and think a little bit about what packing up and leaving Iraq might cost us.

To begin with, we'd suffer a huge international black eye (even worse than what we've gotten already) if we leave Iraq a (bigger) basket case than it is already. We'd be in the same position as the European empires at the end of the Second World War, running off and leaving a trail of busted countries, cultures and governments in our wake. Morally, we have a responsibility to the Iraqi people to at least put things in some semblance of order and leave them in a position to fend for themselves. The United States is obligated, regardless of how long it takes or how much it costs. This point, I believe, stands on it's own, irregardless of what side of the war debate you stand on.

Cutting and running also encourages others who might have evil in their hearts to surmise that the United States doesn't have the stomach for a prolonged fight. The second we leave an Iraq still in the throes of disarray, we invite even more terrorist attacks as the terrorists at work today can claim victory for having chased the "Great Satan from the Holy Ground of Iraq". This is not the same as cutting and running on the South Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt sewer which deserved to be flushed down the toilet, and our enemies were not in a position to strike at he United States (the Russians were too sane, the Chinese too weak, and the Vietnamese too exhausted, at the time). The battle over Communism in SE Asia could be lost because in the end, there was no direct consequence to the United States, as opposed to the Vietnamese themselves, the Cambodians, the Laotians, etc. Leaving Iraq would have direct consequences for the US: although most countries in the Middle East couldn't muster enough military force to beat a troop of Boy Scouts with the runs, their wacky, Islamo-fascist citizens seem quite ready to martyr themselves on America's landmarks. Provided they can kill a bunch of us too, of course.

Why Do They Do It?
The news this evening made a great deal of fuss this evening about the convictions and sentencing of the Rigas, pere and son. These are the guys that once owned Adelphia Communications, a cable television empire, and looted their company to the tune of about 1 billion (with a B) dollars. Mr. Rigas, Sr. faces 20 years in the slammer, unless old age (he's 80) or his cancer, kills him first. Mr. Rigas, Jr. faces 30 years in prison.

The sentences brought about a great deal of speculation vis-a-vis Mr. Bernie Ebbers, the former CEO of World-Com, who faces his sentencing next week. If the judge in this case was not willing to show mercy to an 80 year old man, the thinking goes, then Ebbers is in a heap of trouble. World-Com, by the way, was an 11 Billion dollar boondoggle. Additional speculation related to Dennis Kozlowski (Global Crossing) and what he might face when he gets in front of a judge.

The whole situation of runaway CEO's, the huge amounts of money they seem to either borrow without promise of repayment from their companies, or waste on the mere accumulation of useless wealth, leads one to ask what at first blush to be commonsense questionsHow do guys who are supposed to be financial geniuses manage to get themselves into these situations? I mean, don't they already make a ton of money as a CEO? What leads them to loot the corporate coffers with such reckless abandon and why do their individual boards of directors allow them to get away with it?

As to why, my theory is that in this day and age, wealth by itself no longer confers any distinction. I read recently (I can recall if it was Forbes or Fortune) that the number of millionaires in the United States has doubled in the last 10 years. Once upon a time, having a million dollars in the bank was considered a big deal. Now that just about anyone can do it, it's not all that exclusive a club anymore. Ego dictates that since you cannot impress with wealth, you now have to impress with ostentatious displays of wealth. The Enron crowd, Kozlowski, the Rigas, et. al., all have multiple homes in the most tony neighborhoods (Georgetown, the Upper West Side, Aspen, Malibu, etc). They all have private jets. I'm sure they all have more automobiles and yachts than they could ever hope to drive or sail. Mere possessions no longer work as a measure of distinction. Now the idea is to have something no one else has.

So, the Rigas built themselves 18-hole golf courses on their properties. Kozlowski got himself an $8,000 shower curtain or somesuch nonsense, and a $16,000 umbrella stand, not to mention the $2 million toga party he threw for his wife at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. If it can be overdone or overblown, then rest assured, it will be. Penis envy writ large.

And who pays for it? Certainly not the guy who wants it. He can simply raid his corporation and because he's a "genius", no one will question him, or press him very hard to pay it back. The shareholder is shafted so that the CEO can have platinum-plated toilet seats, and a full-time ass wiper in his 4,300 square foot, italian marbled, centrally heated, bathroom. The one on the EAST side of the 40 room mansion.

This lead me to start wondering about something else that seems to bother the financial world greatly to the point of becoming a very dangerous fixation: the fascination with corporate earnings. Now, earnings, naturally, have value as a measure of the profitability of company, which invites other investors, which attracts customers, and so on and so on, as they taught us in Economics 101. In that sense, the better the earnings, the better the company. However, when you stop to consider that the number of millionaires is doubling every few years, it brings up a very interesting proposition (and I hope someone actually does some research on it, because it's beyond my tiny brain). We live in an investor society now. Fifty years ago, when perhaps 1 in 80 people had any interest in the stock market, earnings, while important, did not mean all that much (comparatively). The only people that were going to get paid dividends were that 1 in 80, and they were happy with what they got. Nowadays, when 1 in 10 people actually own stock, those original 1 in 80 are quite pissed. They just don't quite make what they used to, having to split it with the peasants, so to speak. The only way to keep the big investors happy is to increase earnings, which gives a bigger return per individual investor.

All of which leads to some very stupid business decisions, prime among them, giving the guy who pumped those earnings up the ability to steal. That's his reward for keeping the old money happy. And what does he do with it? He buys a $16,000 umbrellas stand or gets himself sentenced to 30 years in prison when he's caught juggling the books to artificially keep those earnings up. The CEO also (not always) receives a large portion of his compensation in stock options (meaning he's also looking for the biggest return he can get) and gives him an additional incentive to steal and cheat.

What's the solution? Heck if I know. But I'd line 'em up and shoot 'em. After the concrete enema.

Those Voices in the Wilderness...
As of late, the news has been even more chock-full of anti-war screeds than usual. I can certainly think of a few reasons as to why (there's an election coming up, the typical response of people who have not "been heard" is to scream louder, etc.), but the reason, more than likely, is that there seems to be little else to actually talk about.

Going into year three of the Iraqi experiment and we still haven't had an Iraqi center enter the NBA draft (straight from high school, no less). Iraqis are not buying Doritos by the shipful. Martha Stewart has yet to unveil her new line of home furnishings inspired by Iraqi handicrafts. Bobby Flay and Emril have not been cooking up any Iraqi dishes on the Food Network. If none of these things are happening, according to most Americans, then just what is?

Well, at least once a day somewhere in Iraq a bunch of people get blown up in front of a police station or standing in line at a market. Several times a day, someone in Iraq is being kidnapped and beheaded, after being forced at gunpoint (after the mandatory torture period is over) to make an impassioned plea for G.W. Bush and Co. to get out of Dodge and let the "peace-loving people of Iraq" get on with their dreary, 7th century lives. In the meantime, anything that could possibly be classified as a "good" event in Iraq is barely mentioned. Like for example; thousands of Iraqi men lining up to take jobs as police officers despite the risk, a disparate Iraq population taking great pains to establish a fair and equitable government or American soldiers aiding Iraqis in thousands of simple, work-a-day ways like administering inoculations or building schools and hospitals.

The reasons for this are obvious: the story about an American G.I. toiling away to build a schoolhouse for Iraqi children is a) not sexy to network executives and b) starts some people in these parts to wonder why we can build schools in Iraq and not here. One reason is a simple business decision (i.e. violence sells, and the more vicious, random and misdirected the violence is, the better. Especially if it makes a back-handed political statement), and the other is merely common sense (we're supposed to be fighting for OUR children, you know).

However, I believe there are far more insidious, and yet all-to-common, factors at play. The first is the the great majority of the American public (we'll call them the Great, Unwashed Masses) has an attention span which can be measured in MPH. Unless something explodes every fifteen seconds, or unless there's tits on display, they simply lose interest. Give them anything that requires them to think, which involves patience, or which involves an historical perspective, and they immediately begin to watch The Real Gilligan's Island. Mary-Ann in a wet t-shirt is so much more interesting in the inner-workings of the new Iraqi government.

A second factor in the recent upswing of anti-war "news" has to be the sheer volume of anti-war, anti-American and, more specifically, anti-Bush rhetoric from the same old circles. Democrats, of course, can be expected to wail the loudest (and they certainly do), and every piece of bad news from the front is a piece of good news for them. Every one of the political dissidents on this issue, however, can reliably expected to have a convenient barin fart when it comes to accurately recalling their own actions at the beginning of this whole thing. You know, the Congressional debates, and ultimately, votes, that allowed the President to commit American troops to Iraq, and the spending bills that continue to fund ongoing military and civilian activities in Iraq. Democrats can scream about how opposed to the war they are, but they cannot simply resort to blaming the guy on watch when he couldn't do it without their tacit support. This tactic failed when it came to pinning 9/11 on Bush (it was democrats who erected barriers to anti-terrorism incentives, who hamstrung the CIA and FBI and who defunded the military. By the way, that charge was led by John Kerry, in case y'all forgot). Let's also not forget that Iraq was a problem constantly ready to boil over during 8 years of the Clinton administration, which treated Saddam Hussein as a hemorrhoid rather than as a cancer.

Not to be outdone, of course, are the international critics. European countries (particularly France and Germany) which see the United States as a threat to their them, in all senses of the word. The do-nothing-but-rack-up-a-ton-of-parking-tickets brigade at the U.N.. Amnesty International (which hasn't met a gulag it didn't like, unless it was run by a democratic nation, and which has been dead silent on the dictatorship of Mugabe for all I know). The ACLU (which hardly exists in the American Spirit anymore and protects not so much Civil Liberties as Civil Libertines). And last, but not least, the communist and former communist states of Russia and China, which simply opposed an Iraq invasion on the basis that it would shut down a source of ill-gotten hard currency for poison gases. Add the faculty of Berkeley and three quarters of the Kennedy School at Harvard for good measure. They're still upset that Oil-for-Food-for-The-Benefit-of-France was upset by Bush, Blair, Powell, Rice, et. al. for having the temerity to insist that the United Nations actually enforce it's own resolutions.

Yet another factor at play is the fear America itself inspires when it has legitimately been aroused from it's typical torpor. September 11 not only woke America up, it gave it's politicians and military an excuse to be an active force in the world. Naturally, we'd like to be a positive force, but unfortunately, we've had to be a mostly negative force in terms of bombing, strafing, etc. The positive stuff cannot start until all the negative has been purged, and the longer the negative continues, the greater the chance that we'll just get frustrated and be done with it. Permanently. Part of this fear arises from the realization that should America actually find a justification to, it could lay waste the entire planet and there's not much anyone else could do about it. Not going to happen, but it's a fact that most astute statesmen must always keep in the back of their tiny minds. Another fear-inducing aspect is what would happen if we actually succeeded --- if you're a tin pot dictator oppressing your people, you're next on the list, perhaps. Of course, with the United States committed for the long-haul in the Middle East, keeping very close tabs on Iran and circling like a vulture over North Korea, you don't have very many places left to sell Fiats, Gitanes and Brockwursts. If these regions should fall under American sway (militarily, politically or culturally), it would literally wreck most Western economies.

Which brings us to the plaintive wailing. All of it says pretty much the same thing: surrender now. Which begs the question:why should we? The reasons given, of course, make little to no sense. Those reasons revolve around the typical stuff: we're running concentration camps, we're killing innocent people, we're wrecking our own economy, we're wasting American lives in a quixotic dream. All of these reasons were the staple of the anti-war crowd in Vietnam. And both World Wars. And the American Civil War, too. In fact, they've been the basis of every anti-war movement since the beginning of recorded history.

American Gulags? Last time I looked, not one person has died in US Custody at Guantanamo Bay. In fact, the prisoners there get three meals, prayer time, medical treatment (including dental, mental health services and eyeglasses --- it's a better deal than Medicare), hot water, and somewhat comfortable accommodations. Compare that with the mass graves in Iraq, and even in Serbia, in Europe's backyard. Compare the treatment of Islamic prisoners in Cuba to the treatment afforded Western hostages in Iraq and other shitholes across the Middle East. No one is being mutilated and decapitated on the internet in Gitmo. In the cases where there have been abuses by US troops or officials (Abu Graib, Baghram, etc), punishment is being meted out, the guilty are being called to account. Stalin never did anything like that. Meanwhile, closer to home, we're still debating the utility of the Patriot Act, and it's consequences, without mentioning that no one has yet been prosecuted under it (which also means that no case has been overturned due to constitutional review under it), and that the Patriot Act was passed in true, democratic fashion, by a majority of both houses of Congress. Let's be honest: if you're against the Patriot Act, then vote against it. But don't be cynical and insist that it's unconstitutional" or a "threat to Civil Liberties" secure in the knowledge that should it actually prevent a terrorist act, you can proudly point to your "yes" vote.

Killing innocent people? Last time I looked, Arabs are killing more Arabs than American troops are. Iraqi "insurgents" (let's call them what they are please, which is terrorists) kill more Iraqis on a daily basis than American bullets do. In fact, those self-same car bombers are more likely to come from other places around the Middle East to engage in a massive bloodletting of fellow Muslims. When the scumbags do manage to show themselves in any numbers, we do manage to kill them, and unfortunately, some innocents do happen to die as well. But ask yourself this: is that because the US goes hunting with the intention of killing innocents or is it because the bad guys insist on fighting from inside hospitals, mosques, schools and residential neighborhoods?

As for the economic arguments, the United States can easily afford to fight the war in Iraq. With one hand tied behind it's back and it's eyes closed, no less. What's being spent in Iraq is a fraction of what we spend on indoctrination (i.e. education) in this country every year. If you believe that the difficulties in Iraq are directly tied to recent economic problems here, particularly the price of gasoline, then you're an idiot. Many of the same people who complain about $2.50 gasoline were also the first to shout "No blood for Oil!". They're also the same dolts who find $2 gasoline abominable but who say nothing about $4 milk. You can't have it both ways: you can't come out and say we fought a war to steal Iraqi oil, and then complain that you can't drive 4sblock to work without taking out a second mortgage.If anything, the recent spike in the price of gasoline should put the "Haliburton" conspiracies to rest. The actual causes of the rise in gasoline prices have very little to do with war. The are, in no order whatsoever:

1. There has been no new oil refinery built in the United States since the 1970's. Even with the one we have running over capacity, they still cannot meet the demand.
2. The EPA has regulated us into a gasoline crunch by mandating that gasoline come in 16 different varieties, each specially blended to match conditions in individual regions of the country.
3. The emerging economies of India and China are consuming ever-increasing amounts of oil.
4. OPEC has slowed production of crude to a) take advantage of the higher process, and b) try to reign in US policy in the Middle East by indirect methods. Saudi Arabia does not want to be next on the list of "terror-sponsoring nations" but cannot directly confront the United States.
5. There have been at least two major fires at one Texas refinery site in the last three years. That has to slow production down greatly.

The American economy could very easily take $3 gasoline and not be too adversely affected, if we were honest about it and willing to make the sacrifice.

As for the sacrifice of American soldiers, well, that's what they're there for. They all volunteered with the knowledge that they might have to go to war one day, subject to the orders of those duly elected. The duly elected make decisions regarding war and peace, and while Bush might be the Commander-in-Chief, he didn't just wake up one day and send 150,000 Americans to Iraq. It was a decision made by means of debate; in Congress and in the public square of the media, and in the end, the American people gave him permission to do it through their elected leaders. Of course, the nature of any military operation is that it's near impossible to pull one off without losing anyone. At the end of the day, 1,700 American dead (to date), while tragic, is not anything near to a military disaster, and that sacrifice has not been in vain when you stop to consider the potential they have unleashed in the Middle East: Iraqi elections, Lebanese democracy movements, Libya playing ball and the Saudis extending the franchise.

The voices very often have salient points to make, and they should never go unheeded, however, this is not one of those times to listen. When it comes to Iraq, we also have to take into account a moral imperative. Iraq may not have been a functioning, stable, free state in the terms that we understand, but now that we've knocked out what passed for a government, bombed the place flat, disrupted commerce and removed simple services like electricity and running water, we do have a duty to stay until a modicum of those things can be restored, either by our own force, our own treasure or by the Iraqis themselves. For those who believe that the Iraqi "adventure" was mistake, ask yourself how much worse it would be if after having destroyed, we then abandoned.

Battling Leviathan...
In a few days I will be sitting in a courtroom, dealing with minions of the Fed'ral Gubmint, in a Quixotic attempt to get them to cough up benefits that I only happened to have paid for. I'm not looking forward to it at all, quite frankly, because I have a deep and abiding distrust when it comes to monolithic institutions doing the right thing.

The "Right Thing" in this case would be the Social Security Administration ponying up 19 months worth of disability payments that I'm supposed to be entitled to by virtue of the fact that I happened to have paid for them. By the way, this is a batrtle that has been waged for the better part of three years now.

How we got to this point is a study in why someone should take a sledgehammer to any institution or business that somehow manages to become too large.

Way back in September 2001, I happened to be in the flight path of a jumbo jet that ultimately struck the World Trade Center. Subsequent to that event, I found myslef covered in debris from the Twin Tower's collapse, and within a few months, began suffering from a host of mental health-related issues which forced me to stop working in the spring oif 2003. All of these issues were related to the September 2001 attacks, but I had tried very hard to fight through them before deciding that I was in need of serious treatment. In December of 2003, I attended an evaluation session at the local Social Security office in which a psychologist with access to nine months of medical records managed to speak to me for all of 20 minutes before deciding I wasn't psychotic. Whioch was good, because I never claimed to be and that wasn't my diagnosis. However, her evaluation was necessary as to whether or not I would collect benefits from the government.

So, here we are, with a psychologist who has a pile of paper from other medical professionals which stae that I suffer from PTSD, Agoraphobia, clinical depression and Anxiety disorders. She determines that I can wash myself, feed myself and otherwise have not bought an arsenal of unlicenced automatic weapons. She acknowledges the fact that I had been in therapy for nine months, taking medication to control symptoms, etc. At the end of the day, her evaluation can be summed up in one telling sentence: "the patient suffers from a very bad case of nerves", which was cause for denial of benefits.

Now, I don't know where she went to medical school, but "very bad case of nerves" doesn't sound very medical, or even clinical, to me. Anyway, I was entitled to an appeals hearing, had I wanted one, and you're damn right I did. It is now June of 2005, and I'm about to get my appeal. By my count, that's 18 months just to get an appeal.

While I've been waiting, I've been doing some research on how the Social Security Adminsitration actually handles people who file disability claims. What I have found out is enough to make you jaw drop through the floor.

Amazingly, approximately 95% of all first-time applicants for Social Security Disability benefits are routinely rejected, despite the legitimacy of their medical claims. I have heard of people with missing limbs, deadly cancers, AIDS and worse, being denied benefits for reasons that can only make sense to a bureaucrat. In the meantime, while you're waiting for your appeal, you'd do well to retain the services of a lawyer, a Social Security Disability Consultant and a Voodoo priestess, because you will be sure to require their services.

In order for the United States Government to turn over to me benefits for which I have previously paid for via taxes (for which I never got to vote for, by the way), I have to retain the ability to sue my own government and collect a team of professionals whose only function is to part the red tape by ensuring the proper forms and procedures were followed, which by law, th SSA is supposed to do anyway? Is it just me or is there something fundamentally wrong with this scenario?

So, off I go on Tuesday to sit in a courtroom with an Administrative Judge, who is going to pore over three-year old documentation for a malady I no longer suffer from and my greatest nightmare runs like this:

1. He or she is busy and just decides that the bureaucrats were right, and don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out.

2. He or she just doesn't have enough information to go on, would I please get that extra paperwork and schedule another hearing for fall of 2012?

3. While I might be entitled to benefits, I am not eligible for them in the full amount, and I will be sitting here waiting for a check that covers my lawyer's fees and nothing else.

4. The case is dismissed arbitrarily and summarily.

I'll let ya know what happens.

Back in the USSR...
I have temporarily returned to the People's Republic of Bloombergia, aka Sodom-on-the-Hudson, aka The City that Never Sleeps. It's almost as if I never left.

The Tobacco Nazis are still a force to be reckoned with, however, they seem to have strengthened their grip upon the hapless citizenry of this once-fair city. The price of cigarettes has risen to seuch an extent that it makes crack an attractive option. Which was probably the point of the tax increases to begin with: once we're all completely zonked, no one will notice Mayor Bloomberg coming at us with an ever-bigger purple shaft, which typically presages another massive tax increase to pay for failing schools, dilapidated mass transit or further curbs on our constitutional rights.

The talk of the town these days is the proposed stadium to built on the West Side of Manhattan. This is a relic of the Guilliani administration, and was originally intended to draw the NY Jets back to New York. It's now being touted as a must-have item if New York is to have any shot at hosting the 2012 Olympic games. Of course, it's a ,ajor political hot potato. The typical anti-development crowd which has held up anything resembling modern construction in New York Citry for 30+ years, the same folks who killed Westway and fought an epic 20 year battle to save bass in the Hudson River, are of course opposed to the building of a stadium. They make the same bleeting noises they always do about such proposals: traffic, enviornmental impact, ballooning costs, etc. Vy the time anything actually does get built, not only will there not be a NY Jets fotball team, there will no longer be any such thing as the Olympics, nor will there be anything that could be recognizable as New York. The same old, same old.

Next item on the agenda is the argument over the proposed Freedom Tower, which looks like something a deranged gynecologist might construct to futher degrade and torture his patients. The plan behind this scheme is to replace 220 stories of prime real estate with 60 stories of prime real estate, topped with a 60 story metal skeleton, to be topped with a phallic spike, which will make it the tallest free-standing structure on the planet. Of course, it provides nothing which is actually needed: quality commercial space. It will be stuffed to the rafters with public spaces, memorials, and museums, and no place for business. Not surprising since it was the politicians who chose the design, despite all the fanfare about letting th epublic have it's say. The same no-development nuts are wailing about this one too, but they are joined by the other no brigade, the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. I reiterate what I have said time and time aagin; those of you who lost your loved ones have my sympathy, but there's 9 million other folks around these parts who need jobs and a place to do them in. Your grief does not entitle you to stand in the way of progress.

Anyways, I'll be here for another three weeks or so, so as I come up with more stuff to complain about, I'll be sure to write it down for y'all.

Le Catastrophe!
The following was lifted from expatica.com:

PARIS, May 25 (AFP) - Torn between resignation and desperation, supporters of the EU constitution in France were engaged in a last-ditch attempt Wednesday to reverse the lead of the "no" camp ahead of this weekend's referendum.

With the last 10 opinion polls all suggesting that the constitutional treaty will be rejected in Sunday's vote, the first signs of despondency and recrimination were creeping into the "yes" campaign.

Nicolas Sarkozy, head of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, told an ill-tempered cabinet meeting on Tuesday that he no longer believed the "yes" would win, a colleague told AFP.

"I keep on telling you that the thing is lost," Sarkozy was quoted as saying in an angry outburst.
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president who led the drafting of the text, said the failures of the "yes" campaign were partly the result of a lack of European enthusiasm on the part of the country's leaders.

"Our current rulers are of course believers in the idea of Europe, but in their heart of hearts they are not men and women who are inspired by a European feeling," he told Les Echos newspaper.

"When we encounter difficulties, they are too ready to blame Europe. So it is hardly a surprise that the French have a bad idea of the European Union," the 79-year-old former president said.
But speaking on the LCI television news channel, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said that with 20 percent of the electorate telling pollsters they were undecided it was foolish to give up hope.

"It's not over yet. It's not over until the people have spoken. It's always the case that many people leave it till the last minute to make up their minds," said Raffarin, who is widely expected to leave office after Sunday whatever the outcome of the referendum.

Supporters of the constitution were banking on last-minute televised interventions by President Jacques Chirac and the former Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin to shore up their vote.
Speaking on the main television evening news programme Tuesday, Jospin - a widely respected figure on the French left - said that a "no" vote would leave France isolated and its European partners bewildered.

Listing the political leaders who back the "no" - including far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Communist and Trotskyite party chiefs and the dissident Socialist Laurent Fabius - he said they could have no coherent alternative to the constitution.

"All these 'no's are incompatible and absolutely unrealistic ... What are we going to do with them - put them in a cocktail shaker, mix them up, then ask the president to present this shaker to our astonished European partners?

"I think such an attitude will not just isolate France but leave us incomprehensible to the other Europeans," Jospin said.

Chirac was due to appear on national television on Thursday evening.

Drawn up after four years of laborious negotiations, the EU's constitution is meant to streamline decision-making in the expanding bloc but must first be ratified by all 25 member states.

In France approval was initially seen as a foregone conclusion, but over two months of campaigning the opposition has surged in polls - buoyed by widespread public discontent, fear of unemployment and falling real wages, and anxiety about new competition from the low-cost economies of eastern Europe.

A "no" vote in so important a country as France would trigger a period of paralysis inside the European Union, and have huge repercussions on the domestic political scene.

The EU was a stillborn the second it was conceived. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the EU was merely Germany getting via politics what it couldn't get in two World Wars, and France attempting to do what the Soviet Union could not --- ensure that socialism would be alive and kicking into the 21st century.

If anyone needed proof, it was there to see. Whether it's Denmark and Britain refusing to adopt the Euro, the Dutch balking at every policy from immigration to free trade or the Irish getting spanked for daring to prove that Reaganomics could work in Europe.

The real clue was when the EU required NATO (i.e the United States) to take care of a third-rate brush war in the Balkans. A brush war precipitated, by the way, by French and German recognition of independant governments before Tito's body was even cold, never mind the ancient racial and religious strife. It was finally almost-ended with the brilliant strategy of ensuring Serbs (Europeans!) didn't have access to flush toilets and running water.

The bottom line: Denmark was not going to pay to keep Italians retired in the style they've become accustomed to, Greeks were not going to shell out for government-subsidized maid service in France and the English were never going to get involved in the first place, merely just picking and choosing which parts of the EU plan best benefitted Britain. The Portugese were not going to pay Italian tax rates in order to fund bureaucrats they didn't get a chance to vote for or remove. The EU's true colors were shown when it grudgingly accepted Poland and almost had collective apoplexy over the question of whether Turks were Europeans or not.
Let's not forget that constitution which brings back the law of seditious libel and requires a PhD in bovine scattology to understand.

Besides, anything which involved France and Germany getting into bed together (the two nations have fought four major wars and a couple of minor ones in the last 200 years) was bound to be bad news for everyone else on the continent. Put a fork in it, the EU is DONE

Getting your Burkha (or Kaffiyeh) in a Knot...
Now that Newsweek has been blasted for irresponsible reportage and being very bad Americans, let's turn our attention to the other side of the coin vis-a-vis the whole Koran-in-the-toilet kerfuffle.

Islam is a sorry excuse for a religion. The people who practice it are often a sorry excuse for people. It's central tenet is the primacy of Islam, to the exclusion of all other religions, even going as far as to advocate violence and sadism in a an effort to either forcibly convert or eliminate non-Muslims.

The Bible says "Thou shalt not kill". It does not make a distinction such as "Thou shalt not kill other Jews" . Islam, on the other hand, tells it's adherants a amalgam of the following: Thou shalt not kill other Muslims, although Jews and all other infidels are fair game, unless of course, you are killing Shi'ites and other apostates or if your murderous rampage is made in the name of securing or regaining secular power, which of course, you will do in the name of Allah."

Islam is all about murder. It's murdered it's way across three continents since the 7th century, so why should it stop now?

Newsweek was definitely wrong to publish that article considering the volatility of the Islamic hoarde and the fact that American boys and gals are in the line of fire. But it's also painfully obvious that Muslims will latch onto any excuse they can find to kill somebody. Anybody.

You know, it's about time all of this "hearts and minds" bullshit in Iraq and Afghanistan came to an end. You can invade a country, drive out the repressive, murderous thugs who run it, introduce democracy and the free market and in the end, the violence continues. It continues because we have been aiming at the wrong target. Saddam and the Taliban were merely side effects: the real poison is Islam.

President Bush has made incredible efforts to frame the current War on Terror not as a crusade (not afraid to use the word) against Islam, but merely the evil dictators and terrorists who hide behind it. I have always disagreed with this contention. If we're serious about winning, it cannot be through magnanimity before victory is achieved, it must be achived before we can be magnaminous. Once again, our Western sensibilities, in this case not knocking anyone's religion, is hindering us.

Flatten Iraq if the people won't turn in or do something about the terrorists and insurgents in their midst. Send Afghanistan back to the Mud Age is people wish to riot over a thrid-hand report of a falsehood, merely accepted as fact because they lack the capacity for independant thought. Murder, rampage and outrage is all these people understand, and naked power is all they respect. Let's start filling some mass graves of our own ---Saddam seemed to rule over a country with no internal dissent when he did it. Only after the rabble rousers and their hangers on are utterly defeated, humiliated, unable to continue the fight on any level whatsoever, can the process of democratization go forward.

The Galloway Affair...
I caught all of about 15 minutes of George Galloway's testimoney in front of the Congressional Oil-for-Food investigation. Mr. Galloway was so arrogant, so huffy, so wrong-headed, that it wasn't worth it to watch any more. Just based upon the stupidity on display, I don't need to see the evidence against him: he protests way too much to NOT be guilty.

Newsweek Makes Up the News...
In the aftermath of the "Koran Debacle" there should be some very sorry and introspective folks at Newsweek. In case you've been living in a cave, here's what has transpired:

Newsweek reported in it's May, 9th issue that military personnel at Guantanomo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet as an interrogation method. After the publication of this little gem, riots took off from Afghanistan to Pakistan, 17 people were killed in the violence and American troops in the Middle East are about to reap the whirlwind. Taking their queue from Newsweek, several American and international news agencies fanned the flames, and of course, continued to question the policies of the United States, although time with a more jaundiced eye that before.

It turns out that Newsweek isn't even sure the story is true. In fact, Newsweek didn't even bother to check it out. Newsweek merely ran a story based on heresay, with out corroboration, and the source for this whole thing isn't even sure where he read it.

So, let's get this straight: Newsweek runs a story based on one source, who's information is suspect and isn't even based upon a first-hand, personal knowledge. The resulting outrage against the United States causes millions of Muslims to flip their turbans (let's be frank, it doesn't take much to begin with) and 17 innocent people die. American troops and diplomats will bear the brunt of the falsehood, and the job we have to do in Afghanistan and Iraq just got exponentially tougher.

You know, everytime someone makes acase against censorship, someone else does something like this and makes us wish we did censor our press, when warrented.

Sixty years ago during WWII, soomething like this would never see the light of day, whether it was true or not --- the potential to damage U.S. operations and the potential harm that could be done to our troops, would have made the reporters of that day think not twice, but three times, before publishing. However, in this day and age of News as Entertainment and the rush to be the first to break a story, it's painfully obvious that what passes for reportage these days is shameful and disgusting.

I certainly hope Newsweek will start a fund not only for the people killed in the riots, but starts putting aside major cash for U.S. personnel who are now more likely to be killed because of the resulting firestorm.

I just cancelled my subscription.

Cheney in '08?
Wouldn't THAT be something to see? I'm salivating over the thought of Dick Cheney deconstructing and destroying Hillary in a debate. It would be no contest, and after it was all over, Mrs. Clinton would be lucky to walk out of the room with her sanity.

However, Dick is an older gentleman, and although he has looked bery healthy recently, there's no telling how that ticker would hold up under the strain of a campaign. Then again, if I was HIllary, I'd be dreaming of facing Dick on the off chance that he actually does have a heart attack before election day: the only way this woman could win the Presidency is if her opponent died.